Poets Archive: Uncategorized

Oh, quiet peoples sleeping bed by bed Beneath grey roof-trees in the glimmering West, We who can see the silver grey and red Rise over No Man’s Land—salute your rest. Oh, quiet comrades, sleeping in the clay Beneath a turmoil you need no more mark, We who have lived through yet another day Salute your Continue Reading »

The little girls are singing, “Rin! Ron! Rin!” The matin bell is ringing “Din! Don! Din!” Thirty little girls, while it rains and shrapnel skirls By the playground where the chapel bells are ringing. The stout old nuns are walking, Dance, little girls, beneath the din! The four-point-ones are talking, Form up, little girls, the Continue Reading »

Some lie in graves beside the crowded dead In village churchyards; others shell holes keep, Their bodies gaping, all their splendour sped. Peace, O my soul … A mother’s part to weep. Say: do they watch with keen all-seeing eyes My own endeavours in the whirling hell? Ah, God! how great, how grand the sacrifice, Continue Reading »

At least say this: my mem’ry will be dear With that sad sweetness which is nobly fine. I ask no more: the rest cannot be changed; Let memory and tenderness be mine. And may I die more nobly than I live (For I have lived in folly and regret): Then in the last Great Moment Continue Reading »

‘Tis strange to look on a man that is dead As he lies in the shell-swept hell, And to think that the poor black battered corpse Once lived like you and was well. ‘Tis stranger far when you come to think That you may be soon like him … And it’s Fear that tugs at Continue Reading »

At least I live. Emotion’s fiercest winds Sweep through my soul. Sometimes my heartstrings play the gayest chimes – Sometimes a toll. I am not stagnant. All my Being thrills; A raptured song Resounds throughout my Self with varied tones The whole day long. At least I live. I am not stagnant. Though My joy Continue Reading »

Let memories of me be brave and true: I would not like to think the Life I gave Had brought you woe. Be proud, not bent With gloom, as though some frightful shame had spent Its fury on your house. I die …. What then? I am but one ‘mongst countless finer men.

To-day I reach the zenith of my life, No time more noble in my span of years Than this, the glorious hour of splendid strife, Of War, of cataclysmal woe, and tears. All petty are the greatest things of yore, All mean and sordid is my dearest lay; I have done nothing more worthwhile before… Continue Reading »

Red roofs peeping through the stately trees, A distant spire; smoke floating on the breeze; The whir of aeroplanes high overhead; Brown cows, by dirty village girls led; A cyclist rushing down the road in front; And infantry, away to bear the brunt. The shrill cry of the farmer to his mare, A blue betrousered Continue Reading »

He was digging, digging, digging with his little pick and spade, And when the Dawn was rising it was trenches that he made; But when the day was over and the sun was sinking red, – He was digging little Homes of Rest for comrades who were dead ….

In the Shell Hole he lies, this German soldier of a year ago; But he is not as then, accoutred, well, and eager for the foe He hoped so soon, so utterly, to crush. His muddy skull Lies near the mangled remnants of his corpse – war’s furies thus annul The pomp and pageantry that Continue Reading »

I I should like to imagine A moonlight in which there would be no machine-guns! For, it is possible To come out of a trench or a hut or a tent or a church all in ruins: To see the black perspective of long avenues All silent. The white strips of sky At the sides, Continue Reading »

Here, as I lie in this white cot, The world seems as a dream remote – The echo of a strident note, Once heard, now half forgot. In this dim room, sequestered, high, Time does not beat with anvil ring; The sand runs slow, untroubling The hours as they go by. I lie and watch Continue Reading »

Green fields that are scented and sweet, God’s sunshine, the air, and the trees, Thy beauties we knew not before, They were there, and who doubts them that sees? But we, who bereft for a space Of the joys that God meant us to share, Have been living ‘mid sandbags, and scorched Without shade from Continue Reading »

Nine-Thirty o’clock? Then over the top, And mind to keep down when you see the flare Of Very pistol searching the air. Now, over you get; look out for the wire In the borrow pit, and the empty tins, They are meant for the Hun to bark his shins. So keep well down and reserve Continue Reading »